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Posts Tagged ‘new gear’

Gibson Anniversay Flood Les Paul Studio

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , on May 19, 2011| 7 Comments »

When I think of “Les Paul,” I think of classic burst or even solid finishes (not all). After all, at least for me, the venerable Les Paul is the standard in classic styling. It’s why I’ve never been attracted to the zany color schemes that occasionally appear on the market, like that Silver Burst (f-me, that’s UGLY).

Enter the “Flood” model that comes in swirly blue or green. To me, that ain’t a Les Paul. It may look like one and play like one, but it’s not in a color scheme that I would deem it a Les Paul in my book. Give me a classic Honey-, Desert-, Cherry-, Tobacco-, or Tea-burst any day.

It’s not that I don’t like the paint job. I actually like it, but it’s something that I imagine would be on a PRS or other boo-teek guitar; not a Les Paul. To me, that “Flood” finish denigrates my Les Paul ideal. But just because it’s not for me, it doesn’t mean others won’t like it, like some mac-daddy pimp. I could actually see Freddie Mercury slinging one of these.

It certainly might fit into the 80’s glam rock era with big hair, makeup and spandex pants, where looks were just as important – perhaps even more important – than the music.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know… It’s all about the tone. But as a performing artist, I couldn’t ever picture myself wielding one of these axes. I shouldn’t even call it an axe – it’s way too toy-like to me.

Then to top it off, since it’s a “special” model, Gibby is charging a premium for it. It retails at $1549, almost TWICE the price of a regular LP Studio. For goodness’ sake, it’s just a Les Paul Studio with a snazzy paint job!

Okay, rant off…

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New Gear and Gig Report: Gretsch Electromatic G5122DC Walnut Finish

Posted in gear, gear reviews, gig report, guitar, guitar gear, guitar gear reviews, guitar reviews, Guitars, new gear, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 14, 2011| 2 Comments »

It pays to be a good customer of a local, independent retailer. When I first saw the Electromatic at Gelb Music in Redwood City, I fell in love with it; unfortunately at the time, I didn’t get it. I came back a few days later wanting to by it, and Jordan (the guitar gear manager) reported that he had sold it. 😦 In fact, he hasn’t been able to hold onto any of the walnut finish Electromatics for more than a couple of days. So I told him that as soon as he got one in to contact me. Well, after a couple of months (which was good because I could set aside some money for it), Jordan finally got one in, sent me an email, and I put a down-payment on it over the phone on Thursday. I picked it up yesterday and immediately used it at my weekly restaurant gig.

Jordan had even set up the guitar for me knowing that I might gig with it on Friday, and set the action and intonation perfectly! But that’s a testament as to why I’d rather deal with small-box retailers than big-box ones like GC. The folks at the small-box retailers get to know you, and over the years, you establish a great relationship with them, if not a friendship. I’ve gotten to know all the great folks over at Gelb, and if you’re in the area, you owe it to yourself to get to know these guys. They won’t steer you wrong! Anyway, enough of that, let’s get on to the guitar, shall we?

So, so pretty…

Usually, I’m less concerned with looks than I am with tone, but the finish on this guitar immediately drew me to her when I first saw her hanging on Gelb’s Gretsch rack. By the way, I’ve already named her “Rose,” for her rose-wine-hue, walnut finish. As with any Gretsch, it’s all about classic styling, but the finish on Rose is simply incredible, as it takes that classic styling and dresses it up with a gorgeous finish that immediately draws your eyes to it. The picture I’ve provided does not do her justice at all. Suffice it to say that the translucent walnut finish gives her a red wine hue that is so alluring – sexy, you might say. Last night, several customers commented on her beauty. I gotta tell you, it was like showing up to a party with the prettiest girl hanging on my arm! 🙂

In any case, I shot a few pictures of her this morning. Rose is AMAZING!!!

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…sings like an angel…

Playing a G5122DC at Gelb made my decision for me. While it doesn’t have the deep tone of a standard body Gretsch, it still has lots of depth, and as with any Gretsch, the tone is as smooth as silk, no matter what pickup you’re playing. I love the scooped, ringing tones (but not twangy) of the bridge pickup, and the neck pickup has an eery, ethereal, three-dimensional tone that’s perfect for finger-style. I used the middle selector last night quite a bit as well to blend in both pickups for certain songs.

Last night, I was plugged directly into my DigiTech Vocalist Live, that adds some reverb and chorus, then goes directly into the restaurant’s PA board. While it sounded great, coming out of the PA speakers, monitoring was an issue, as the restaurant only has a single 6″ monitor that just doesn’t give a good representation of the sound. But hearing it in the house, I was just blown away! The tone was rich and full, and seemed to fill the room, even at a lower volume. That kind of three-dimensional sound is inspiring! It floats in the air, and feels so close that you can almost touch it.

I’ll be recording clips really soon!

…and I could hold onto her all night!

Rose’s neck is very much like a 60’s Les Paul neck, so playing her felt immediately familiar. I had her set up with 10’s, which are on the light side for “acoustic” playing but provide a real versatility – and heck, with a four-hour gig, lighter strings are just easier to play. 🙂 The guitar is fairly lightweight – probably in the vicinity of 7 to 8 lbs., so prolonged gigging will not be an issue with Rose. Last night, everything about her felt so great. I love the position of the master volume, and with the pickup switch being in a similar position to a Les Paul, switching pickups mid-song was a breeze!

I didn’t quite like the action that Jordan had set on Rose originally, as it appeared to increase towards the bridge, so once I set up my rig, I made a couple of adjustments to the action on both sides of the floating bridge. What a different that made! It actually took me a few minutes to get used to how easy Rose was to play. And being that I’ve been playing this gig with an acoustic, I had to remind myself to really relax my left hand and not dig in. 🙂 That’s actually a good problem to have, and a testament to just how easy this guitar is to play.

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I Finally Found a Strat That I Like

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 29, 2011| 2 Comments »

I started out as a Strat guy. Then when I moved over to vintage Marshall-style amps, just couldn’t stand the reedy, thin sound of my Strat with my amps. It sounded fine clean, but the overdrive sound was horrid. Well I finally came across a Strat that has much more balls than my old one. It’s an American Strat that has been hot-rodded with noiseless Kinman pickups and an L. R. Baggs Ctrl-X upgrade, which places a pickup in the tremolo bridge called the X-Bridge pickup. This includes a three position switch that functions similarly to a Les Paul switch: Fully up is magnetics only, middle is a mix of X-Bridge and magnetics, then all the way down is X-Bridge only, which is produces a fat, gainy tone.

I think that’s the problem that I had with my Strat and other Strats I’ve played. They don’t have enough gain to really push my vintage Marshall-style amps. But with the X-Bridge, I can get enough gain to push my amps to their sweet spots. I should say that that’s only for my non-master volume amps. It works great with my Fender Hot Rod; in fact, I was playing around yesterday and getting gorgeous overdriven tones with that amp using this guitar.

As an example of the effect the X-Bridge has on gain, here’s a comparison clip. The first part is just the magnetics, then the second part is played the same with the same chords and same pick attack. Gives you lots of gain. 🙂

I’ll tell you what: The X-Bridge seals the deal for me.

Next, here’s a short song applying both magnetics and X-Bridge. The rhythm part is played with just the magnetic pickups, and the lead is played with the X-Bridge. I have the amp set with the volume at 6 on Channel 2 of my Aracom 18-Watt Plexi combo and the tone at 3pm (optimum for a Plexi).

Where I had the amp set, it was just at the edge of breakup for the Strat in magnetics only mode. Then when I engaged the X-Bridge, I got a nice gain boost that pushed the amp over the edge. That gives me a nice, light overdrive that adds just a tiny bit of compression and sustain.

This is really profound for me because I had all but given up hope on Strats, even though I love their tone. My old Strat just doesn’t have the balls that this one has. It’s just way too thin and bright; which reminds me that the Kinman pickups are absolutely fantastic! They have a bit deeper tone than a vintage Strat pickups – I have the ’57 Tex Mex in my MIM Strat – and THEY ARE NOISELESS! No more 60Hz hum! 🙂 Frankly, I didn’t know too much about these pickups, but they’re apparently very popular replacements among Strat and Tele players. They’re not cheap at $300 for a set, but they’re well worth the money.

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New Gear: Source Audio Guitar Envelope Filter

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Awhile back, I mentioned that one of the next pedals I was going to get besides my Timmy was an envelope filter. I was really digging the Electro-Harmonix pedals, but then got contacted by Jeff at Source Audio who was saying that they were working on a new guitar envelope filter, following the bass envelope filter they recently released.

If you’re not familiar with Source Audio, they build the SoundBlox line of pedals. What makes these pedals different is that they can be manipulated on the fly with a motion sensor ring called the HotHand Motion Controller ring. I’ve always been intrigued by these pedals, but haven’t had the chance to try any out. Until now. I hopefully will be getting a couple of their pedals for review soon, and I have to tell you, I’m excited!

The envelope filter has a TON of cool sounds, so you can get all sorts of vowel tones out of it. With the motion controller ring, you can even get variable wah sounds! THIS IS COOL STUFF!

In any case, here’s the demo video they just released of the new guitar envelope filter:

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A Powered Cable? R&M Introduces the Power Wire

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 19, 2011| 2 Comments »

I was looking around for new gear to talk about and ran across this video at Guitar World:

All I can say is… interesting. As said in the video, the power wire has a tiny amplifier built into the jack that connects to your guitar powered by two long-life batteries.

Not sure how I feel about it, which is why my reaction was a lot more mild. It’s certainly cool, adding more gain to your input signal. According to the R&M Tone Technology web site, the cable comes in 0-6dB gain options. I guess the thinking is that more gain gives you more dynamics, but it also changes the overdrive point of whatever drive pedals you’re using, or if you’re going straight into the amp, where your amp breaks up.

I would actually see this as a benefit for single-coil, or low-output humbucker-equipped guitars, where that extra gain will get you overdrive earlier on. Not sure how I’d like it with hotter pickups such as the ones that are in my Gibson Nighthawk Reissue.

But at $39.00 for a 20 footer and $43 and $47 for 30- and 40- foot cables, it might be worth it to try out. For more information, visit the R&M Tone Technology site.

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New Gear: Fender Announces the New “Pawn Shop” Line!

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 12, 2011| 2 Comments »

No, this ain’t an April Fools joke. Fender has just announced a new line of guitars called the “Pawn Shop” line of guitars under the tag of: “Guitars that never were but should have been…” What a cool concept, and the coolest concept I’ve heard from the Fullerton company in a long long time. Essentially, these are “official” parts casters, borrowing from a base model but putting new twists on them. I won’t bore you with details because they’ve just released a new site dedicated to the three new Pawn Shop guitars. Here it is:

http://www.fender.com/products/pawnshop/index.php

The one I like is the “Pawn Shop Fender ’72.” This has a semi-hollow Strat body, a Tele neck with rosewood fretboard, and two humbuckers. YOWZA!!! I totally love the concept! In any case, check it out.

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New Gear: Rivera RockCrusher

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2011| 19 Comments »

Meh. Nothing really new, just a new attenuator to enter the market. It’s a bit funny the claim he made about the Rock Crusher being the only switchable impedance attenuator on the market today. He obviously didn’t research the Aracom or Faustine attenuators. Another thing he mentioned about an impedance mismatch with an 8 ohm output hitting a 20 ohm load blowing a transformer I found amusing. Possibly the other way around could do it, or a blown tube, but that kind of mismatch wouldn’t do any harm to your amp. From what I understand, all an impedance mismatch like that would do is reduce the output power of your amp. Can you say Ultimate Attenuator, which a lot of people use? 🙂 It attenuates by using a 30 ohm resistor.

I do like some of the features on his attenuator like the balanced line out. That’s pretty cool. But overall, since I already have a couple of fantastic Aracom attenuators, I’m just not too excited.

But I have no doubt that Rivera will have success with this as they already have a dealer chain, plus the price is $499, which is half as much as the Faustine, and not much more than the Alex which is a single impedance device. Even if it only has two impedance settings, you’d have to get two Alex’s to get that capability. It is less than the Aracom, which is $649 for the Pro, but with the Aracom’s input and output impedance matching, plus its technology, I’ll stick to my Aracom.

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New Gear: Electro-Harmonix Voice Box

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 2, 2011| 4 Comments »

You gotta dig the folks over at EHX. They take classic designs then put their own unique twist on them. I’ve been considering getting one of their envelope filter pedals for  awhile, but then they recently released a harmonizer pedal called the Voice Box that is very intriguing. I myself have been using DigiTech’s Vocalist Live 4 for a few years, and it has served and continues to serve me well. But after a few years of gigging, things are starting to wear down, and some buttons are just plain broken.

As such, I’ve been looking at either getting a new VL4 or going with a completely different unit altogether. The TC Helicon VoiceLive Touch seems pretty cool, but this new entry by EHX warrants a deep investigation; especially as it is priced at under $220 street, where the VL4 and VoiceLive Touch run about $500.

Granted, the Voice Box doesn’t have many tweaking features, and it doesn’t have nearly the amount of presets as the VL4 or VoiceLive. However, from what I could gather from watching a couple of videos, the sound quality of the harmonies is great, and it includes a vocoder! Now THAT is cool!

For me as a solo gigging musician, a harmonizer has been an important part of my rig. And after years of use of my VL4, I have to admit that I only use four of the 100 presets of my VL4 – just four! So with the EHX’s nine presets, if I can get the harmonies that I use most often, then I may just have to get it. Besides, at around $220, it’s not going to run me broke. It also means that as a pedal, I can mount it on my pedal board, and not have a big unit that I have to run separately into my board. As I only use three effects on my board, there’ll be plenty of real estate to take this pedal!

Here’s a video:

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Perry Riggs Slash L Guitars “Lana” Clean Test

Posted in guitar, Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 8, 2011| 5 Comments »

When I get any guitar, one of the very first things I do is to test it out clean. I know, I already did a clip of the guitar dirty, but that was just a spur of the moment thing, and I literally only spent 15 minutes with her when I recorded the first clip. But tonight, I wanted to really take some time to dig in, so to say, and run Lana through her paces.

So I hooked her up to my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe because it just has killer cleans. Came up with a simple chord progression in D, recorded it, then laid down the lead. The “rhythm” part of this clip is with the neck pickup coil-tapped. The lead is with the guitar in the middle position, no coil-tapping. Give it a listen:

One of the first things that struck me was the super-organic, acoustic quality of the rhythm track. The inherent sustain creates lots of resonance, so it acts like the resonance chamber of an acoustic guitar. That’s really amazing. The guitar is probably about an inch and a half thick where the neck meets the body (no joint as this is a neck-through guitar), then tapers out to less than an inch around the body. At first glance, you wouldn’t expect this guitar to have so much sustain and resonance, but Perry’s design somehow creates tons and tons of sustain. Excellent!

When I played the lead, the humbuckers were simply thick and juicy, but without even a hint of boominess, even through my Hot Rod Deluxe, which can get pretty fat in the bottom end. Though I ultimately recorded the lead in a single take, I recorded it after about an hour of looping through the chord progression, just playing lead lines.

To me, that’s the mark of a truly great instrument. I lose all track of time when I’ve got a great instrument in hand. I’ll play for hours on end, and not stop. That’s how good Lana is. She can absolutely sing! I’d put her up against a Les Paul any day; and that’s saying a lot! Can’t wait to hook her up to my Plexi-style amps!

As to the recording, the guitar was recorded completely raw. I didn’t add any compression or EQ or do any mastering. The guitar was plugged straight into my Hot Rod, and I just set the Reverb on 3 to give it just a little grease. But that’s it. What you hear in the recording is just that.

By the way, even before I do the formal review of Lana, she’s going to get 5 Tone Bones. I know, I’m letting the cat out of the bag, but this is such a damn great guitar that I’d be lying if I gave her anything less than a 5!

If  you’re looking for a great custom guitar, Perry is the man to talk to. I don’t have his contact info in front of me, so I’m not providing it just now. Perry, if you’re reading this, please let the folks here know how to reach you.

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I Wonder Why…

Posted in Guitars, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 13, 2011| 5 Comments »

…high-end Yamaha acoustic/electric guitars haven’t taken off in the US? It’s not as if Yamaha instruments aren’t known in the States. But what you most commonly find in US shops are the sub-$1000 guitars.

I’m a little embarrassed to say this, but I didn’t know Yamaha had a whole lineup of high-end acoustics until I started doing research for a new acoustic-electric last year, and I happened to go their site to see Yamaha’s handmade line of acoustic and acoustic-electric guitars. These appeared to be on par with any American high-end acoustic with respect to materials and design, and they’ve been building these for years!

When I finally made my decision on a new acoustic-electric and comparing many different brands I ended up buying a Yamaha APX900, which is just about the best stage acoustic I’ve ever played! But a couple of months after I got that wonderful guitar, I saw a press release that Yamaha picked up Steve Lukather and he was playing their LJX26CP model. Curious, I looked through the Yamaha site and saw this beautiful lineup of various handmade guitars.

The LJX26CP is a handmade, medium-jumbo guitar with a natural finish. Here are some specs:

Top Solid Engelmann Spruce A.R.E.
Back&Side Solid Rosewood
Neck 5ply (Mahogany + Padauk)
Finger Board/Bridge Ebony
Body Depth 100 -125mm (3 15/16″-4 15/16″)
Nut Width 44mm (1 3/4″)
String Lengh 650mm (25 9/16″)
Tuning Machine Open Gear
Color Natural
Finish Gloss
Preamp System62
Standard Accessory Hard CaseX

The very cool thing about  this guitar (and others in the new lineup) is the new SRT pickup system, which is an improvement over the incredible ART system, which is what I have in my APX900. I chose the APX900 over all comers because of this pickup system. It is by far the best pickup system I’ve ever used in any acoustic, hands-down. But SRT goes even further than this by adding microphone modeling and other tone-shaping features to further enhance the natural sound of a guitar while plugged in. I wish I had that in my APX!!! OMG!

What got me thinking about Yamaha guitars was recording this song:

With this, I mic’d my APX900. It sounds pretty good, but I really had to do a lot of EQ and other adjustments to get a richer sound. As you can tell, the tone is pretty bright, which works pretty good, but I really don’t like applying EQ to guitar tracks as I want to capture the natural sound of the guitar, whether it’s an acoustic or electric. Anyway, I was thinking to myself that it would be great to have a guitar that has a killer tone both plugged in and unplugged. That’s when I thought of the LJX26CP.

What I wanted was to have my cake and eat it too. While my APX900 sounds absolutely fantastic on stage, from what I’ve been able to gather on the LJX26CP is that it also sounds killer unplugged!

So circling back to my original query, it’s amazing that these amazing guitars with amazing electronics haven’t caught on more here in the states or why Yamaha hasn’t invested more in marketing their top line in the States. Maybe they think the market’s too saturated. Who knows? It’s not as if the guitars are completely inaccessible. You can special order them, and if you’re in Europe or Asia, you can get them online. But as someone once told me, “There’s room in this world for people who are good.” That totally applies to gear. And if Yamaha brought these guitars to shops, I have no doubt that they’d do well here. It just takes getting the word out and coming up with messaging that differentiates it from the competition.

Without a doubt, the big differentiator for Yamaha’s guitars is the SRT system. As if ART wasn’t impressive enough in previous models, SRT looks like it will blow ART away! I definitely want an LJX26CP! Luckily for me, the local shop where I get a lot of my gear is a Yamaha dealer, and they can order one for me. I sure wish I could play it before I order it; hopefully, they’ll have a return policy, or allow me to not buy it if I don’t like it. Chances are that I will indeed like it.

In any case, from personal experience with Yamaha guitars over the years – my first acoustic was a cheapo Yamaha FG335 that my dad gave me for my 18th birthday. Those inexpensive, it had a fantastic voice that was comparable to high end acoustics. I performed and recorded with it for years! To me, Yamaha totally gets it with acoustic guitars, and even its budget models sound and play great, plus they’re very well-built.

For more information on the Yamaha guitars that have the SRT pickup system, visit the SRT site! You’ll notice that the site’s in Japan. It took me A LOT of digging to find that site. There are clips and interviews on the site that will provide you with tons of information on the line.

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